Site Review: NS (NetSmartz) Teens

Design:The site relies heavily on Flash video, so only a handful of pages comprise the site. This helps with navigation and keeps the content in a neat little package. All of the videos and games run smoothly, with very little in the way of hiccups or buffering.

Review: NSTeens represents a partnership between Sprint and the Internet safety experts at NetSmartz Workshop, a program of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). Accordingly, the site’s content is of high quality.

Valuable lessons benefit students without talking down to them. The scripts for the cautionary video tales are better than most of their type, making the characters relatable without being too over-the-top.

The site also houses NetSmartz’s Real-Life Stories videos, a series of teen narratives about real experiences of online victimization. Each of the videos offers an activity card to facilitate student discussion and understanding.

Bottom Line: Expertly produced video content and a wealth of teacher materials make NSTeens worth a visit.